Be Kind to Sticker Lady!
I often look down on myself for feeling neutral about many things most of the time. But yesterday the "Sticker Lady" saga really got me rather upset and puzzled about SG's strict vandalism laws. Basically this lady decided to stick some humorous stickers at various pedestrian crossings (at the button you press to get the green man to appear). She also spray painted "My Grandfather Road" on a public road (incidentally at the junction leading to the MND building) and "My Grandfather building" on a public building. The punishment? The police arrested her yesterday for acts of vandalism and she's currently out on bail.
Netizens are lobbying for MHA to move the charge from one of vandalism (where she can be fined up to $2000, or jailed up to 3 years, or both) to that of an act of public nuisance (in which case the penalty is a fine of up to $1,000). As at now, some 12,500 netizens have signed the petition and it seems to be going strong.
This "case" is ongoing but I just hope the authorities don't go down the harsh road - in the first place, isn't it subjective what counts as vandalism/ graffiti and what counts as street art? Surely they can close one eye in this case, since her "vandalism" was pretty harmless mah. Am quite curious how this case will be assessed and plays out over the next few days. D thinks that a harsh penalty shld be in place as deterrence; but somehow this rather practical reasoning did not go down very well with me haha.
4 comments:
hey, I meant harsh penalty as a deterrence in general.
But I think this case, the judge can maybe deal differently (creatively).
Sorry, I'll offer a dissenting opinion here. I don't really want any legal decision on this matter to be dependent on a personal (subjective) interpretation on the artistic or other nature of the graffiti's content. It opens up a whole can of worms for other cases. I do believe the law should be merciful - but it depends on the personal circumstances she was in when she made the graffiti. (e.g. her old age, perhaps if her mental condition was not good, etc.) But, if the only thing I know of the situation is that the graffiti is not obscene and was intended to be humorous, then I'm not sure the law can or should be interpreted differently....
Now, whether the situation is open to motivations of graffiti. the law to be subj
Sorry, I'll offer a dissenting opinion here. I don't really want any legal decision on this matter to be dependent on a personal (subjective) interpretation on the artistic or other nature of the graffiti's content. It opens up a whole can of worms for other cases. I do believe the law should be merciful - but it depends on the personal circumstances she was in when she made the graffiti. (e.g. her old age, perhaps if her mental condition was not good, etc.) But, if the only thing I know of the situation is that the graffiti is not obscene and was intended to be humorous, then I'm not sure the law can or should be interpreted differently....
Sure, I can accept your 'dissenting opinion' from the "open a whole can of worms for other cases" perspective. In this case, I don't think there's reason to be 'merciful' in terms of personal circumstances and I think why she has drawn so many 'supporters' was more because of the nature of her "graffiti". I thought it wasn't clear if her type of graffiti shld be judged under the Vandalism Act or that of public nuisance.. not so much of interpreting the law differently? According to some TODAY commentary this week the relatively harsh nature of this law was in part because it was originally intended to deter communist-motivated public campaigning type of 'graffiti'... so if that was the original intention behind the law, her act can't quite be considered the sort the law was intended to prevent either?
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